Author: Gabriel

Absolute Classic Rock, Rocks

First, a playlist:

To explain: this is one of those blogposts that tell of an impressive internet find, so brace yourselves. A week or so after installing Ubuntu, I decided to try it’s built – in music player called, shockingly, ‘Music Player’. Ok to be technical, it’s ‘Rhythmbox Music Player‘.

So anyway when I was still living in the dark and using Windows, I quite enjoyed listening to Internet Radio via Windows Media Player. Now that I’ve reformed, I decided to give the built – in radio stations on Rhythmbox a try, and lo and behold I was instantly gratified to be introduced to Absolute Classic Rock, a radio station already on its playlist that plays, you guessed it, classic rock and roll in the UK. London, specifically.

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I Wrote At PDI Again

Her Highness (my editor) contacted me to write an article last week. Much praise and fawning was applied, to which I am susceptible, and so I succumbed. Here it is. Before you click it, it’s about parent’s options on controlling what their kids see on the ‘net. I mentioned installable software, built in parental controls on Windows Vista and Leopard, router URL blocking controls and my recommended solution: OpenDNS.

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Facebook vs. Google

I knew this was gonna happen so I’m glad I invested in the wait. I had been waiting a long time to figure out my options as to which social networking tool I’d use to enhance my sites with, and after the smoke cleared I think I’m getting a fairly good idea now.

To sum it up, there are four nominees. Twitter, Plurk, Facebook Connect and just recently, I discovered Google’s Friend Connect. I haven’t twittered nor plurked too much though, but I’ve certainly Facebooked and Googled. The fact that Facebook has become something of a minor revolution to my site’s target audience (Filipina women) has helped it’s cause rather well. While Google, well, it’s Google, so the fight is on.

My observations so far:

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Opinion re Cable TV

After the recent re-installation of Cable TV in our household, I have come to the ff. conclusions:

  1. It is for the most part, a monstrous waste of time – Once you turn the TV on, you will inevitably find something interesting to watch. For example, I happened onto a 60 Minutes feature on the FBI agent who interrogated Saddam Hussein for the duration of his incarceration before being handed back to the Iraqis. The other day, I was also enthralled by a BBC documentary ftg. two nerdy guys trying to make a motorcycle to run on compressed air, in an effort to make a zero emission delivery vehicle for a sandwich manufacturer in London.

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Installing xubuntu via Alternate ISO Crashes MSI Wind

Ok here’s what happened. I downloaded the xubuntu Alternate ISO which I installed via torrent. This is after I decided to use xubuntu, a kind of lite version of Ubuntu for either weak (old) PCs or people who want it to run extra fast on new PCs, such as moi.

There are two types of iso files to choose from, an ‘Alternate’ and a ‘Desktop’. Alternate is the ‘lite’ installation method, while the ‘Desktop’ is the bells and whistles version, but only on a graphical scale as they both do the same thing. For example, while the Partition editor on Alternate looks like this:

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The Adventures of Scout (my MSI Wind U100x Netbook)

Ok last night I wailed about * Scout’s (the name of my MSI Wind U100x) minor current of electricity emanating from the VGA port issue which I’m glad to report has dispersed as quickly as it appeared, indicating that it might merely be a static electricity situation as I was using it on my bed (the location of which may or may not be relevant but I suppose is worth noting anyway).

At any rate, said issue is gone now, with no small measure of relief. This prompts me to proceed with discussing the unboxing and preparation of said Scout. First off, le box unwrapped:

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Electric Current from MSI Wind VGA Port

Alright, first off, I haven’t reported on this blog yet that I am now the proud owner of an MSI Wind U100x Netbook I’ve lovingly called ‘Scout’. I blogged about her here, and a month or so after, I finally have her.

nov012008_msi_wind

And now comes the 2nd part of this report, which is to sadly document a problem. Shockingly (and I kid not), there is a minor current of electricity emanating from the VGA port on the right hand side, between the LAN and fan ports.

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Why I Hate Flash

Just a quick note on why I hate Flash, for my reference whenever I get into an (occasionally heated) discussion on why I.. well, hate Flash:

  • Nice looking graphics get old quickly anyway – After seeing the graphics load, no matter how fancy, it becomes a pain to watch it load again – and again – and again, everytime you go back to the website. I don’t care how pretty it is. Unless you have the memory of a goldfish, after the first ooh and ahh you’re likely sated and ready to move on.
  • It’s a heavy download – This is fairly obvious. That’s why Flash designers create all sorts of fancy loading images and hour glass / hour clocks to entertain you whilst you waste away precious moments of your life waiting for the $*#$! site to load. As far as I’m concerned, everytime you put a loader in front of a website visitor there is a 30% to 50% chance he’s gonna lose interest and go elsewhere. That alone, to me, is unacceptable.

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